by Jack Dylan
“Oh, Sinead,”
“Oh, James.”
They looked lovingly at each other and James reached out to hold Sinead’s hand.
“I do love you, you know.”
“I know that, and I love you too, so don’t forget it, as I wouldn’t fall for anyone who wasn’t a bit special. Just because those horrible people in the bank put you down for years you’ve started to believe it. I’ll be hurt if you don’t start believing what I tell you.”
“Oh I do, I do. It’s just so hard to believe I could really do something that I’d enjoy and that someone would pay me for.”
“We’re going to start with a list of your positives, then we’re going to start looking for jobs that could make use of them. It’s just a matter of trying to apply a bit of business sense to the problem.”
Sinead was indomitable. She was finding her own confidence so much greater than it used to be, that she felt sure she could share some of it with James and heal the wounds that he picked at in his mind without her.
She tackled him like a business project, and before long they were setting targets for polishing his cv; for identifying the top three types of jobs he would want; and for completing an application each week.
To his surprise James found that the feeling of making progress was reinforcing of his improved humour and confidence. It wasn’t just the final getting of a job that would make him feel better, it was the little steps along the way that had almost as positive an effect.
.
Chapter 31
Dublin Sept 2006
Lavinia organises Alex’s visit
“Can everyone come for drinks on Saturday and then go somewhere for dinner?” Lavinia proposed to the group one Thursday a few months later.
“I have just heard that someone I know from London is coming and thought you’d all like to meet him.”
William’s face fell.
“He’s actually the skipper from that yachting holiday I went on last year. I sent him one of the photographs a couple of weeks ago and said if he was ever in Dublin to give me a call. I didn’t honestly think he would – it’s just one of those things you write isn’t it – but almost right away here he is. I’m a bit taken aback and frankly it would be great to make it more of a social occasion.”
“Maybe the chap wants you to himself and we’ll just be in the way,” tested a nervous William. He had been quietly allowing his distant but warm feelings for Lavinia to become part of his mental furniture. It was quite a safe, unthreatening but pleasurable thing to allow himself to admire Lavinia from a distance. After his battered psyche’s experience with Pat he felt safer not actually doing anything about the feelings - they were fine as a low key, almost proprietorial feeling. To his surprise, they were suddenly being brought into the relative open by this unwanted intruder from some other part of Lavinia’s life.
Lavinia laughed.
“I don’t think Maggie would have much patience with that. So far as I could see he is devotedly attached to his ‘mate’ in both senses of the word. Whatever has motivated him to take up the offer it certainly isn’t a romantic intention.”
William relaxed, and became aware of just how strongly he had reacted. He wondered if others had noticed and glanced round Steve, Sinead and James, who were all looking slightly oddly at him.
“Well I think the least we can all do is give you a little moral support,” he blustered, trying to make it a group issue rather than the personal drama it had been.
Steve looked at Sinead with raised eyebrows. Sinead blushed, as if any reference to relationships was bound to uncover what she blithely thought was her secret. James looked at William and wondered, but he wasn’t very good at this sort of thing. Lavinia didn’t notice. She was a little in awe of Alex, didn’t know how they would get on when they were in her world rather than Alex’s, and for some unaccountable reason wanted the security of numbers her little group could give.
“This Saturday night?” checked Steve.
Sinead and James exchanged glances to check with each other that they would both go.
“Yes I know it’s short notice but he’s really taken me by surprise. Says he’s coming for some boating event but I’ve no idea what it is.”
“I’m fine,” volunteered William, and the others joined in, making it a full group.
“Just promise me that Hermione and Pat aren’t making a special appearance,” joked William.
“What a good idea!” laughed Lavinia.
“Oh no please. I don’t think I’d survive it,” pleaded William.
It was the first time he had been able to actually make a joke about the previous year’s event. There was a general air of relief that at last it had achieved the status of a safe subject to joke about.
“Let’s say 7 o’clock here, then we can book a table at Delaney’s which is easy walking distance. And by the way I’m paying. We’ll make it a sort of celebration of my photographs if that doesn’t sound too self-praising.”
“No, no, no,” came the murmurs from the group. No-one sure if they were protesting the issue of Lavinia’s modesty or the issue of her paying. It suited James to leave it vague as he selfishly loved the idea of a meal at Delaney’s that he didn’t have to pay for.
“So that’s settled then – just smart casual, but see you here at 7:00.” Lavinia was used to laying down the law with this group.
Chapter 32
Dublin: September 2006
Alex meets the book group
It was in a positive mood that the five gathered at Lavinia’s on Saturday.
“Well Alex, how does it feel to have your feet on dry land for a change?” William felt he was close to the yachting fraternity. He had never sailed but felt a certain affinity for what he perceived as the nattily blazered and well-heeled crowd who frequented the Dun Laoghaire and Howth yacht clubs.
“Well actually I’m fine – rather in between things. I’ve been back in the UK for a few weeks now, and not due to go out again till the start of October.”
“What happens to the old tub while you’re back in Blighty then?” William was showing himself to be an absolute master of an inappropriate style of language that owed everything to his firmly ingrained stereotyping and very little to the world that Alex inhabited.
“Hopefully she’s earning a little money for me with bareboat charters while I sit out the heat in more northern climes.”
“It sounds awfully exotic to have a yacht in the Mediterranean,” joined in Sinead, genuinely impressed that anyone could have Alex’s life and still seem a friendly down-to-earth sort of person. “Is it as exciting as it sounds?”
“It has its moments, but I suppose I take it a bit too much for granted half the time. It’s when we have groups on the boat and I see their reaction to the places we go that I’m reminded of just how lucky I am.”
“I suppose that was me, wasn’t it?” laughed Lavinia, recalling her wide-eyed reaction to the scenery and the unique perspective from the cockpit of a sailing boat.
“Well you certainly took full advantage of the photographic opportunities,” said Alex, turning the conversation to the display of black-and-white 10 by 8s on the wall.
“Oh, I just loved the place, and couldn’t resist the light, and those jetties. They wouldn’t be allowed here but they fit in so well to the unspoiled atmosphere of the place.”
“Wait till they join the EU and a few inspectors start cleaning up the place.”
“What a thought.” Lavinia was horrified at the prospect of standardised EU regulations changing the style and atmosphere of the taverna jetties in the little bays she had fallen in love with.
“I don’t imagine that’s going to happen for a few years yet,” James flexed his confidence in a way that he wouldn’t have risked a year earlier. “I reckon there is such a lot of work to do on the Kurdish issue and the human rights problems before there is any mission of accession.”
“You’re right,” agreed Alex. “It’s still
such a different world there, and I don’t want to see it go the way Greece has gone. Prices are sky-high there and somehow the ubiquitous Euro takes away a bit of the romance. I know it simplifies things but it also makes for too much sameness. I don’t want to see the same brands in Gocek that I see in London and Dublin.”
“I agree,” said Steve, who up to then hadn’t found the yachting chat easy to get a foothold in. “I think the way McDonalds and Starbucks pollute the civilised world is terrible,” he continued, “and the supermarket chains are just as bad.”
The chat continued easily as Lavinia topped up the drinks and made sure everyone was involved. Alex was the natural centre of attention and managed to amuse them all with his poking of fun at the hierarchies of yachting participants in the Mediterranean.
“Well at the top you have the owners of the mega-yachts, which are only yachts in the American sense of the term – no sails, a bit like liners really, with every conceivable comfort on board. The owners of those don’t talk to anyone. They arrive on board by helicopter and so far as anyone can see rarely leave their pampered world. Down the scale a bit you have the big Sunseeker, Cranchi, and Feretti cruisers – I’m talking about the 50 to 100 foot boats costing a few million. The owners of them only talk to owners of similarly sized boats. We see them in places like Kapi and Gocek where they actually do step ashore, smoke cigars, and parade themselves, strutting like fat peacocks within a few yards of their boat so that no-one can fail to realise who is the successful man, and yes it is always a man who owns the monstrosity. They usually have a professional crew, a skipper, hostess, and deckhand, so the owner can pose at the controls from time to time without actually knowing the first thing about seamanship.”
“Come the revolution they’ll have to go.” Steve wasn’t entirely joking.
“The funny thing is they never look as if they have any fun at all,” continued Alex. “They can only get into the bigger harbours, they are fast, insulated, air-conditioned, and generally speaking the people on them have to spend such a lot of time preening, posing, and worrying about how they look that there’s no time to actually have any fun.”
“Don’t they even swim?” asked Sinead incredulously.
“Some do, most don’t – not good for the hairstyle.”
“Oh, my favourite saying was that aging Istanbul businessman with the huge Sunseeker,” chipped in Lavinia. “He must have been 55 at least and weighed 18 stone, but the girl who I thought must be his daughter turned out to be English, and not averse to a bit of improperly intimate contact. She swam for a couple of minutes and the fat old man kept shouting at her, ‘Get your head in the water, get your head in the water, your ass knows it’s swimming but your brain doesn’t.’” Lavinia imitated the man’s American accented English, which somehow allowed her to use the words with impunity.
They all laughed at the thought while Alex continued.
“Then you come down the pecking order to the actual sailing yachts which again have their hierarchy, partly to do with size but overwhelmingly to do with owners versus charters. The owner of the 50 foot yacht will check out the skipper of the neighbouring 44 foot yacht, and if he sees a charter flag he’ll just exchange pleasantries. If he sees no charter symbol or flag, they’ll be inviting one-another for drinks and comparing the cost of marinas. If the owner next door happens to have too small a yacht, he’ll fall somewhere between the other two, not quite a social equal but worthy of reasonable respect.”
“It all sounds horribly snobbish,” worried Sinead, as if the glamour of the world he described was a little less wonderful than she had hoped.
“I suspect every social system sorts itself out like that,” Lavinia didn’t want the glitter to be scrubbed off too thoroughly.
“So where do you fit in all of this?” James bravely asked the centre of attention.
“Ah, good question. Because I have a reasonable sized sailing yacht and because I’m the owner, at times I’m safely in that upper echelon of the middle group. But I’m afraid that I let the side down by taking paying guests, and worse still I charter the boat out when I’m not there.”
“This reminds me of Monty Python, or was it the two Ronnies?” laughed William.
“I bet it was “That Was The Week That Was” you’re thinking of. John Cleese and the two Ronnies lined up and saying ‘I look down on him’ because of whatever it was, and poor little Ronnie at the end with nobody to look down on. ‘I know my place,’ - that was his line at the end.”
They all joined in the merriment although only the older members of the group had actually seen the sketch.
“So who do you look down on,” persisted James.
“Well actually I hope I don’t look down on any of them, except perhaps those big motor yacht people who think they are at the top of the pile but don’t enjoy themselves at all. But in the scheme of things that I was describing the easy answer is the group represented by little Ronnie, the people everyone can conspire to look down on, and they are the flotilla crowds. We all groan when we see a noisy crowd of inexperienced flotilla boats coming in, because inevitably they are loud, they are almost always incompetent, and they are entirely unaware of either failing. So yes, I suppose the bottom-feeders are the noisy English flotillas. Very unfair really, because everyone has to start somewhere, but at least they don’t realise their place in things.”
“Sorry to break things up but we’d better be going,” Lavinia interrupted the sociological exposition.
As everyone gathered their various jackets, bags, phones and other impedimenta, Alex quietly drew Lavinia aside.
“Sorry to be a nuisance, but my mobile’s flat and I’ve promised to ring Maggie. Could I possibly stay behind for a couple of minutes and use your land-line. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
“Of course – I know you’d like a little privacy. I showed you where Delaney’s is earlier so just pull the door behind you.”
The noisy group jostled down the stairs, into the evening air and set out for dinner.
“Sorry to interrupt….” Lavinia was starting to say as she burst into the flat minutes later. She was about to explain that August showers had caught them by surprise and she had returned to fetch umbrellas.
The telephone was sitting unused on the kitchen shelf. The living room was empty – so recently the scene of good-humoured socialising. Lavinia paused, then thought he must be in the cloakroom, but the door was open and the room was dark. She could see a light upstairs and without pausing for thought tip-toed up the stairs. She could faintly hear William and the others in the hallway below.
The light came from the open door of the darkroom that she had proudly shown Alex earlier. Her ring-binder of neatly filed negatives and contact prints was open on the table and Alex was quickly leafing through it. She saw him stop and slip a strip of negatives out of the folder, holding it briefly up to the light. As he did so he caught sight of Lavinia staring at him through the open door.
“I think you have some explaining to do,” she said in more of a steady and challenging voice than she felt. “What the hell do you think you are doing here?”
At that moment William came striding up the stairs having heard Lavinia’s outraged challenge. Without pause he put supportive hands on Lavinia’s shoulders from behind and took in the scene.
“This had better be good,” he grimly added to the challenge.
“Lavinia, I think you should call the police.” William still hadn’t adjusted to calling them the Gardai.
Alex slumped forwards as if his bonhomie, strength and self-assurance had suddenly been switched off.
“I’m sorry Lavinia. I really am. I didn’t mean to…. Oh God this is such a mess.”
Chapter 33
Dublin: September 2006
Alex explains himself
“So you are telling me that this Greek guy really would do something life-threatening if he discovered that there was evidence of the delivery route?” William was absorbing,
and trying to get clear, the muddled story that had been emerging over the delayed dinner. Once they had seen that Alex was obviously distraught, full of remorse and apology, they decided to continue the investigation over dinner. Alex wasn’t eating much.
“I know it sounds far-fetched, but he organised a little demonstration of his ruthlessness when I tried to back out of doing the deliveries this year. I ended up in hospital and my car was wrecked. I have not the slightest doubt that if anything threatened his well-being, I’d be dead.”
“What on earth did he do?” James was fascinated and not a little in awe of the whole story.
“Last year, after our last trip, actually the one Lavinia was on, I tried to insist that I would do no more. He is hard to describe. He didn’t threaten me at all. He maintains this false air of politeness and civility. But within minutes of leaving his house my car was rammed very expertly by someone, and I was catapulted into a wall. When I put it all together later it was obvious that it had been planned. He knew I was unhappy, and knew I’d try to back out. So he organised a little non-lethal demonstration for me which he has never explicitly acknowledged but cleverly made sure I was in no doubt about. I know it all sounds implausible, but honestly and truly I believe he is an absolutely ruthless and unscrupulous gangster. I don’t doubt his willingness or his ability to hurt me or God forbid to hurt Maggie. I’ve been living in fear of him for two years now, and I know this may not seem rational, but I just knew that as soon as I saw that photograph, I had to stop it being made public where he would possibly see it. It isn’t rational I know. How could anyone make all the links between that photograph and his sleazy operation – but believe me it seemed real to me.”
“I can’t believe I’ve caused so much trouble,” Lavinia started to say. She felt her initial outrage completely swept aside by her sympathy for the obvious state of distress that Alex was in.